


Rooftops

by kaspbraks



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Flirting, I haven't written it yet, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, M/M, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Mutual Pining, Reddie, Richie Tozier/Beverly Marsh friendship, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Teen Angst, They're in highschool so chill, Underage Smoking, also eddie and richie are both in love with each other and think the other would never love them, maybe stenbrough??, overuse of the word fuck, really it's just implied, really like half of this is beverly/richie friendship, so many tags i'm sorry, they're completely oblivious
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 17:39:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12259002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaspbraks/pseuds/kaspbraks
Summary: Bev climbed up onto the roof of the small train station first, lighting her cigarette and holding it out to Richie for a drag. Her stick-and-poke tattooed smiley face was just barely visible on the inside of her fourth finger. “Mine’s way better,” Richie had commented, grinning. “The one you gave me looks kind of...demented.”-Or in high school, Richie and Bev are best friends and they often sneak up onto rooftops to smoke and talk shit. They're punk best friends that like to rebel together. Richie has a mini breakdown talking about Eddie and then they have fun vandalizing things (lol). He pines after Eddie and always flirts with him a lot, but Eddie thinks the flirting is a joke (just to get a reaction out of him). Basically they both love each other but neither realizes the other does.





	Rooftops

**Author's Note:**

> Lol sorry the title sucks.  
> Characters aren't mine, they come from Stephen King's It  
> Aged up in the fic. Around junior year  
> This whole chapter is just about Richie and Bev's friendship honestly...literally none of the other characters are even introduced, my bad
> 
> Also, follow me on tumblr!! Please, I'm begging you lmao... richietozier17.tumblr.com  
> PS I'M SUCH A SUCKER FOR ANYTHING INVOLVING BEV/RICHIE FRIENDSHIP...I FRICKIN LOVE HEADCANONS ABOUT THEM BEING ALL PUNK AND SHIT

Richie rummaged through his backpack, eventually dumping out its contents trying to find his pack of cigs. He shivered, the cool night wind blowing through his window. He should’ve been used to it by this point, he’d left it open every night since the eighth grade for Bev to climb through.

He eventually found the small black box, just as he heard Bev coming through the window behind him.

“Richie, you ready?” she asked, black backpack slung around her shoulders. She held her own pack of cigarettes in her hand and a in the other.

“Yeah, let’s go.” he said, grabbing his own aerosol can from his nightstand.

They biked to the abandoned train station in Derry, next to railroad tracks that hadn’t been in use since the 1930s. Once, some group tried to restore the tracks, and got as far as repainting the graffitied walls of the train station. “ _They destroyed my masterpiece!”_ Richie had agonized. _“I’d been working on that wall since I was fourteen!”_ Richie had made a point to spray paint dicks all over the wall every night they went, cracking himself up about how the volunteers were “in for a treat”, even though the next time they came to the railroad tracks it was always painted over. Eventually, the group must’ve given up or lost their funding (or, in Richie’s opinion, “they saw the error of their ways”), and Bev and Richie were able to hang out there routinely again.

Bev climbed up onto the roof of the small train station first, lighting her cigarette and holding it out to Richie for a drag. Her stick-and-poke tattooed smiley face was just barely visible on the inside of her fourth finger. _“Mine’s way better,”_ Richie had commented, grinning. _“The one you gave me looks kind of...demented.”_

Richie followed her up to the rooftop soon after she reached it, taking her cigarette in between his fingers and inhaling before handing it back. His mind relaxed almost immediately as the calming effects of the nicotine reached his brain. Hands trembling from the cold, he pulled his lighter out of his pocket to light his own.

The sickly sweet smell of their two cigarettes permeated the rooftop, wisps of silver-grey smoke curling through the air as they laid facing the night sky. Tendrils of smoke seemed to dance through the air, weaving around them and forming clouds. Richie pulled his cigarette to his chapped lips for the fourth time, exhaling and watching puffs of it rise. The silence was comfortable, familiar.  

“I don’t want this to be it,” Richie said suddenly, breaking the silence.

“What do you mean?”

“Life. My existence. I mean, this can’t be all there is to it.”

“Richie, what are you talking about?”

“I feel like I’m at a dead end. My life right now, the way it is. Just the same old shitty school in the same old shitty town with the same old shitty people. No one gives a fuck about anything in this fucking town.”

“Richie....” Bev began but Richie cut her off.

“Am I annoying?”

“Richie, where the hell did that come from?”

“It’s just...my mom, and Stan, and Eddie–”

“Richie, you can’t trust half the things that your mom says,” she said, turning towards him, smiling softly. “And you know Stan and Eddie love you. I would die without you, okay, trashmouth?”

“I know, you say that, but I can’t help but feel like you and everyone else would like it a lot better if I just wasn’t around.”

“Richie, what the fuck! You’re literally my partner in crime, okay? Who else am I supposed to smoke with every night? And without you who would talk shit about my sad graffiti skills? Richie, you have no idea how happy our adventures make me. Not even Ben understands how it is at home. I think you know more secrets about me than the rest of the Losers combined.”

“It’s just-you know how I am at school. Obnoxious as hell, always going too far with jokes. This morning I teased Eddie so much he stormed off with tears in his eyes and all Stan said was ‘Beep beep, Richie’, shaking his head and going after Eddie. I don’t even know what the fuck I said that upset him so much. They all hate me now, I can just tell.” He shook his head. “It’s usually not even that big a deal. I love getting reactions from them but something about today told me I went too far. It just–it surprised me that Eddie was almost _crying._ ”

“Richie, they don’t hate you. Your mind is tricking you. None of us hate you, okay? And Eddie knows you didn’t mean to hurt him. Stan probably went after him to remind him of that.”

Richie ran a hand through his curls. “Shit, Bev. I love him so much. I wish he could just open his fucking eyes and realize that!” As he finished what he was saying, his eyes began to gloss over with tears and he clenched his teeth as to not let out a sob.

“Richie…” Bev pulled Richie into a hug and began to stroke her hand through his unruly hair. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she reassured him and he forgot all about his dignity, starting to sob into her shirt. Richie let his vulnerability shine through–Bev was the only person he knew he could trust with knowing his suppressed emotions. She was the only person who understood.  

“Why do I have to be so selfish? I should just leave Eddie alone and let him be _happy_ ,” he said, voice breaking as he said Eddie’s name. “What is so wrong with me that I antagonize him just to see his reaction? He’s so fucking _perfect_ and I’m so fucking _broken_.”

“ _Richie_ , I swear, if you would just tell him–”

Richie pulled away from her. “No, Bev. He can’t ever know, okay? Ever. I can’t burden him with all my issues and my fucking baggage. He doesn’t deserve that.”

“You’re so in love with him, don’t you want to know if he feels the same way?” She looked at him curiously and took another drag of her cigarette. The smoke curled up into the pitch black sky.

Richie thought Bev didn't understand. Her love with Ben came easy, he had already admitted to loving her and all it took was for her to realize she felt the same way. Eddie didn't love Richie the way Ben loved Bev. Their love was mutual, they loved each other. Richie could see it in her eyes.

“He doesn’t love me.” Richie laughed mirthlessly. “I seem to have made sure of that.”

“Richie, if Eddie really hated you for all the teasing he wouldn’t keep coming back to talk to you everyday. You’ll never know how he feels–”

Richie cut her off again. “Bev, you don’t understand how hard it is to see him everyday and _not_ kiss him right there on the spot and tell him how beautiful I think he is. He deserves to be with someone so much better than me. That’s why I keep pushing him away-I can’t let him get too close or I’ll hurt him.” He paused, his breathing ragged and face wet with tears. “I can’t _ever_ let him love me, Bev.”

“Richie, are you kidding me? If anyone would be a good boyfriend, it’s you. You’re so fucking caring and kindhearted and Eddie would be so lucky to have you. Who was the guy who organized an entire surprise party for Eddie’s birthday when he turned 12? Who was the one who made us all get out of the car so he could pick up a turtle and help it across the road? Who was the one who held my hair back as I puked my guts out after particularly bad days? If that isn’t caring, what the hell could be? Richie, please, just tell him how you feel. You’re so full of love and you would make him so happy.”

“Thanks, Bev. Really,” Richie said genuinely, seeming to calm down, then flicked his cigarette bum off the roof. “Do you have any vodka?”

“Richie, no! Not now, when you’re feeling like this.”

“I just–I just want to _forget_. I want to forget the look on Eddie’s face when he left this morning. I want to forget the things my mom yells at me everyday. And Stan’s condescending look when he hears about my shitty “coping mechanisms”,” (he said this mockingly, making air quotes with his fingers), “I want to forget Mike’s look of pity that time he walked in on me drunk and crying,” Richie said with pain in his voice and in his eyes.

“Richie…” She pulled him back into a hug and caressed his back, comforting her best friend. “I can’t let you get drunk at a time like this, you’re my best friend and I care about you. Forget I even said anything, I swear I won’t pressure you to tell Eddie anything anymore. We don’t have to talk about anything, really. Isn’t that the whole reason we have this place? To escape from the real world?”

Richie wiped his wet eyes on Bev’s sleeve and sat back. “Yeah, okay. Just pretend like I never said anything, promise? I bet I sounded like such a loser just then,” he said, smiling even though he still had traces of tears in his eyes.

Bev smiled sadly. “Okay loser, you never said anything.”

They were silent for several minutes, now passing a single cigarette between them as not to waste too many. Bev reached over to hand Richie the cig and tucked a piece of Richie’s hair behind his ear.

Richie looked at her with a devilish glint in his eyes. “Hey wait a minute, this is the moment in the movie when you try to kiss me except I shove you away and say ‘What the fuck, I’m too gay for this’,” he said, grinning.

“Ugh, Richie!” Bev shoved him over and Richie started laughing even harder. “You’re so gross!”

“You should’ve seen your face!”

“Dammit Richie, we were having a bonding moment and you ruined it!” Bev says, but there was laughter behind her voice. Before long, Bev is laughing too. As much as she had hated his comment, she was glad Richie could so easily changed the subject and lighten up the mood. It was one of the things that made their friendship so perfect.

He rolled onto his side and puts a hand on his hip. “Ohhhh Bev, you’re so sexy,” he said, smirking. “Hey wait, can you guess who I’m imitating?”

“Richie, shut the fuck up!” Bev said, laughing so hard she almost couldn’t get her sentence out. “Ben doesn’t talk like that!”

“But you knew it was Ben! That means he does!” he said, his eyes lighting up.  

“There’s no one else it could be!”

“No take backs! You knew it was Ben!”

“There’s no one else you could’ve been talking about! It was obvious!”

“Of course it was obvious, because it sounded just like him!”

They go back and forth a few times, catching their breath as their laughter slowed.

“You know, Richie, smoking on the roof with you is usually the best part of my day,” Bev said.

“Usually??!! The fuck?!? Who do I need to fight for your love?”

“Oh my god, Richie, shut the fuck up,” Bev said, rolling her eyes, but a smile peeked out from the corners of her lips. “I’m trying to be sappy.”

“Aw, you wuv spending time with me!”

“I swear to god, Trashmouth, if you keep–.”

Richie grinned. “Okay, okay, me too. Highlight of my day for sure. Fuckin fantastic escape.”

“If only we didn’t need an escape though, you know? I wish my life was so fucking good that sneaking off to smoke would be a low point.”

Richie thought about what she said. “God, why does everything have to suck all the time?” he asked. He sucked in the smoke from the cigarette, inhaling deeply.

“You’re asking me?” Bev said, slightly laughing. “Richie, I don’t know jack shit. Your home life is as fucked up as mine is.”

“I think there has to be some universal rule that if you’re really fucking cool your life has to be balanced out by, say, having a shitty family,” Richie said with a grin. “It must be a sort of trade off.”

“Fuck that. This fucking sucks.” Bev held up two middle fingers to the sky. “These are for you, Derry! Fuck you, you shitty fucking town!”

“Fuck you, mom!” Richie said, lifting up his own middle fingers.  

“Fuck you, Greta and your bitch posse!”

“FUCK YOU, HENRY BOWERS!”

“FUCK YOU, DAD! YOU SICK, SICK BASTARD”

Richie stood up, grinning. He stretched his arms out to the sky and looked up, basking in the moonlight.

“FUCK YOU!” he shouted into the nothingness, screaming towards the sprawling darkness. “FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU!”

“FUCK YOU!” Bev yelled. They were both smiling widely, feeling the catharsis from their outburst. Richie sat back down on the slanted roof and looked up at the stars.

They smoked quietly for a while, coming off the high of screaming at the top of their lungs. 

“Let’s go on an adventure.” Richie said, breaking the silence. He got up, grabbing his spray paint and jumping down off the one-story roof. His legs burned for a few moments, his body angry at him for landing hard on the ground.

“Where to this time, captain?” she asked, not able to contain her laughter when she called him captain.

“Pip pip and tally ho! Off to the bridge!” he said in his shitty fake accent (Bev rolled her eyes. It was a truly awful rendition of a British accent).  

They jumped on their bikes and pedaled down to the bridge at the quarry. They dropped off their bikes at arrival and each lit new cigarettes.

“You know, I was thinking we’d just spray paint dicks on the side of the bridge–” Bev rolls her eyes, “–but you know what? Let’s steal a fucking road sign.”

Bev grinned. “Now you’re talking, Richie.” Derry, being a small town, didn’t have much traffic–especially not at two in the morning. There was maybe one car that passed as Bev and Richie reached a sign labeled “Speed Limit: 45”.

“Richie, how do you plan on doing this?” Bev asked, confused.

“It sounded like a good idea in my head, okay? Just let me try!” He bent down onto his knees and started to scoop out the dirt surrounding the pole. He looked up at Bev expectantly, smiling. “Are you gonna help me or not?”

Bev sighed and set down her backpack, combing at the dirt with him. They had barely managed to dig up around a square foot of dirt when Richie sat back.

“Why did I think this was a good idea? I was trying to be spontaneous, but this just sucks, ” Richie said, exasperated. “This is like the opposite of fun. I would rather listen to Bill talk about fucking student council then keep digging.”

“Yeah, jeez, how fucking deep are road signs?”

“As deep as I was in your mom last night.” Bev smacked Richie on the head.

“Bev! Your hands were dirty!”

“Your mind is dirty!” Bev shot back. She stood up, brushing the dirt from her palms. “So...we’re giving up? I’m disappointed. Truly, I’m wounded.”

“What if...we come back but with shovels. I don’t give up that easily. But for now…” Richie, with a mischievous look in his eyes, ran about a hundred feet down the road to a small intersection with another sign that read “Give Way”. He shook his aerosol can, the familiar shrill metal clacking ringing in his ears. The only sound was the quiet hiss as he sprayed a line of paint striking through “Way” and wrote "Head" in its place. Proud of his handiwork, he turned back to Bev and grinned.

“Richie, you little shit!” she yelled down the road, but laughed anyways.

She halfheartedly tried to kick some of the dirt back into the hole, but ended up walking towards Richie. They headed down the road and vandalized a few more signs along the way (Richie noticed one of his old masterpieces as they walked past it and pointed it out to Bev, “ _Hey, I wrote this last time!_ ”).

Richie glanced at his watch and became all too aware that it was already four in the morning. He pointed this out to Bev, who seemed shocked it was already so late.

“How has it already been four hours?” Bev asked. “You’ve barely spray painted three dicks! It’s a record low!’

Richie rolled his eyes but laughed. Stepping on the bum of his last cigarette of the night, he tucked the pack into his pocket. Bev unzipped her backpack for her pack of gum and pulled out a piece for each of them, a routine they had fallen into after each commented on the other's smoker breath.

The unmistakable brightness of car headlights shone down the street.

“Fuck! Get down!” Richie said urgently. Richie saw Bev duck behind a bush as the cop car scouted the area. His stomach churned with the fear of getting caught, even though he was sure the driver hadn’t seen their silhouettes. His heart was pumping rapidly, instincts kicking in and telling him to run.

Richie glanced at Bev, who nodded at him as if to signal that they should go. Richie picked up his speed to a sprint as he took off through the woods, towards their bikes. His feet hit the ground, one after the other for what felt like _forever_ before they caught sight of their bikes. He struggled to catch his breath, his lungs fucked up from all the smoke over the years.

The cold air in their lungs felt like they were kids again. He wasn't in a good situation, running from the police, but he had never felt so good in his life. He felt _alive_. The adrenaline from the fear of getting caught mixing with the effects of his last cigarette gave him a rushing sense of euphoria. He slung a leg over his bike seat. He picked up his speed to beat Bev back to the house, thoughts far from Eddie and the others.

He ditched his bike on the sidewalk in front of his house and unlocked the front door with the key under the mat. Richie’s mom was passed out on the couch, so deep in sleep as usual that Richie didn’t worry in the slightest about her waking up. Bev headed upstairs to return her aerosol can to Richie’s nightstand, and Richie stayed back to relock the door. Richie didn’t bother to hide the incriminating evidence, it’s not like his parents would care about his graffiti habit anyways

He walked upstairs a couple minutes later, setting his spray paint bottle next to Bev’s in the closet. He didn’t bother to hide the incriminating evidence, it wasn’t like his parents would care about his graffiti habit anyways.

He turned the corner, spooked by the silence since he was sure Bev was upstairs.

“...Bev?” he asked, pushing his door open slowly.

Bev was fast asleep on his bed, still in her black rooftop clothes, with her backpack and shoes discarded at the door. He smiled softly at the sight, unfazed by Bev’s sleeping state due to its familiarity. Unfortunately for him, she was sprawled diagonally across the top covers, so he had to pull his pillow and a blanket from his closet onto the floor. Barely able to keep his eyes open, he quickly brushed his teeth and pulled on sweatpants. He pulled his blanket towards him, and for the first time in days, he slept soundly. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you don't want more chapters (hopefully the next one will involve the entire loser's club and reddie dynamics?) picture richie heavily flirting with eddie, maybe that'll make u want the next chapter lol
> 
> Kidding. Mostly. Feel free to send me prompts on tumblr (richietozier17.tumblr.com), and please leave kudos and comment if you want the second chapter!!!


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